A History of Tobacco Cellaring?

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Deleted member 4028

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Hey guys,

I have been browsing the Net trying to determine when tobacco cellaring started among pipesters. Is it something recent or has it been going on for decades? I seem to be incapable of gathering substantial infos on this topic.

I was wondering if anyone had an idea or could point me in the right direction (links, book(s), etc)?

Many thanks & Cheers!
 
That's a way great query and I don't have any definitive answers.

Seems to me that in the "olden days" pipe smokers bought what they needed for immediate consumption and the concept of aging was not a factor. But when did this turn around?

Perhaps in part due to the internet and spread of information, forums, and the like. And the inevitable input of like-minded individuals sharing their experiences. As well as the on-line presence of the e-tailers and their input about certain blends. Not to mention sites like pipedia and the review site.

Sure to have missed something, but to me the ball really started rolling when I first got on-line in '01 or so. And clearly that's much behind many others here. Seems to me that's when I found and joined the JRBB (say whut??)...

All new concepts to me, but so it went. And now we are here. But that begs the question, where is here?

:scratch:



Just chasing my tail...........


:lol!:





Cheers,

RR
 
I don't have much input as far as real data but my personal experience was to buy what I could afford and stock it way for when times were tight. That would have been back in 86. By the late 90's I had a considerable stash of stuff jared up in old canning jars. Remember the ones with glass lids and replaceable rubber rings. It was nothing compared to what's done today but certainly did what I needed at the time.

Jim
 
My bet would be that "tobacco cellaring" is a creature of the internet, as suggested by Brewdude above. There is plenty of pipe smoking in literature and older movies, but nowhere any allusion to cellaring that I have ever come across. I just don't think smokers deliberately aged and hoarded pipe tobacco in days of yore. I still don't do it, except by accident--the accident of accumulating a closet full of pipe tobacco and having years go by.

Cigars are a different matter, kind of like wine. Gentlemen's clubs have had members' cigar lockers for centuries. Seems like that might qualify as "cellaring."
 
I ran a shop in the Midwest in the early 90s. I'll say I knew around 15 pipers and their habits well. I only knew one guy who had more than a handful of tins at any given time, and he was the hoarding type. He had a whole closet of tins. He wasn't aging. He was paranoid that all the blends and brands would disappear. He bought sleeves of tobacco he didn't even like. He just wanted to be ready. Everyone else bought as needed. You finished a tin, so you bought another. Like shaving cream or shampoo. If they had more than one tin of any given tobacco, it was because they bought them on sale or because they special ordered with a requirement to buy so much in dollars or in number of tins. I'd say the same for the guys who were buying a pound of bulk tobacco at a time. Utilitarian.

No great sense of when it shifted to the idea of aging. I would guess it was around the time cigars really took off, which was also in the early 90s. When Cigar Aficionado was first published, and then a strong commercial drive to connect cigars with wine (didn't they share the same publishers or editors?), where aging is obviously common and part of the normal conversation. BING BING. Lights turn on.
 
Cellaring is, I understand anyway, a peculiarly North American phenomenon. Pipe smokers in Europe, for instance, still tend to purchase for immediate consumption and don't generally stockpile a favourite blend.

I'm guessing that smokers in the US and Canada started cellaring tobacco in the 90's as a result of tightening tobacco legislation and the establishment of smoke-free workplaces. etc. The anti-smoking campaign, though aimed primarily at cigarettes, spilled over into cigars and pipe tobacco and the price and availability of preferred blends changed, sometimes drastically.
 
the first time i heard about that was in the ephemeris where rick esserman mentioned that suggestion several times. that was long before the internet.  he said that he got the idea from his friend piazza.
i understand the idea is much more older , from the time of drucquers and old dunhills, as i have seen in very old dunhill labels.
 
Thanks for the input guys! Looks like yeah, Drucquers, Pease and other gents played a part in it as back as the 80s, as lb mentioned; probably even before that. From a rather marginalized percentage of smokers, it became an accepted practice by the end of the 90s and today, well, I don't have statistics but I would guesstimate 1 pipester out of 3 cellars some tobacco.
More infos here for anyone interested:

pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/a-history-of-tobacco-cellaring

Pay particular attention to Cortez, oldgeezersmoker and pipestud's answers.  ;)
 
Back when I started smoking a pipe ( the late '60s) you just bought what you needed when you needed it from a B&M ( there were 6 of 'em near me back then), or mabe a few extra tins by mail order catalogs (Irwin Ries etc.) by snail mail with paper checks ! The first time I'd heard of this hoarding thing was in the early '90s when I got on the web! :twisted: :twisted:
 
I’d imagine the idea of cellaring is as old as pipe tobacco use. You grow tobak, twists some ropes or make a plug, and let it be for a bit.
 
Cellaring is just another fancy term for buying something more than you need. Maybe it started with Price Club. :p
 
SourMilk":o8t47p0m said:
I’d imagine the idea of cellaring is as old as pipe tobacco use. You grow tobak, twists some ropes or make a plug, and let it be for a bit.
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You're probably right, but the context of that really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this context.
 
Brewdude":07pqd861 said:
And.........

Many of us are convinced the tobaccolypse is coming!!
:!:
Cheers,
RR
Click to expand...
I'm convinced and that's why I started stocking up. I have a modest cellar and don't consider myself a hoarder, just proactive.
 
As for me I have several wall lockers I am filling up as my cellar hopefully to enjoy later. I figure the lock on there keeps me from opening my tins too early...

 
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